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Don't change the weapons from what they would be from lore. That is the worst idea I have seen in awhile. They need to be balanced with something else. Aka give those domain groups better spells if they have a weaker weapon choice.

Originally Posted by Tolero

Ultimately you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it be a good player.

Originally Posted by Tarrant

Please don't make posts like this, thanks.

You can give a man fire and he will be warm for a day, but set him on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Don't change the weapons from what they would be from lore. That is the worst idea I have seen in awhile. They need to be balanced with something else. Aka give those domain groups better spells if they have a weaker weapon choice.

I wasn't necessarily saying that these should be changed from lore, but they are much too limited and rather terrible. As far as I see it, there are 4 options:

Leave as is. This sucks.

Change the favored weapon for at least two of those categories (I really don't think our options should include multiples of the same weapons).

Seriously expand the list of available domains, so that we gain more options without breaking from lore.

Attach abilities/enhancements to the favored weapons that improve them enough that they feel on-par with more desired choices.

In the case of the last, that would be probably granting longswords either an expanded crit range (basically turning them into bigger damage die scimitars), or an increased multiplier (turning them into khopeshes without requiring a feat, which seems reasonable). For the bows, maybe grant some of the archery feats for free to alleviate the MAD issues a divine caster has when trying to effectively wield a bow.

That's moot as you could implement new favorite weapons without changing away from lore. The Sovereign Host's favored weapon is the longsword, but the Sovereign Host is not a single deity, it is a pantheon including several deities, each with their own favored weapon:

Olladra (neutral good deity of luck and plenty. Domains: Healing and Luck): Sickle.

Onatar (neutral good deity of crafts, industry and fire. Domains are Artifice, Fire and Good): Warhammer.

The Sovereign Host also includes the Evil Deities of the Dark Six, but as DDO is not using evil alignments as player option lets leave them away. We use Domains, we could easily use above lore to arrive at following Domains from the Sovereign Host alone:

Plants (Weather or Nature): Morningstar

Magic: Quaterstaff

Hunting: Battleaxe

Protection: Spear

War: Halberd

Good: Longsword

Travel: Mace

Healing: Sickle

Artifice: Warhammer

The only concession you might need to make (houserule) is find replacement weapons for Combat and Good as DDO does not have spears and halberds as actual weapons. It wouldn't be too much a stretch to use Greataxe instead of Halberd for Combat and, say, Greatsword for Spear.

That's moot as you could implement new favorite weapons without changing away from lore. The Sovereign Host's favored weapon is the longsword, but the Sovereign Host is not a single deity, it is a pantheon including several deities, each with their own favored weapon:

The Deity determines the weapon, not the domain... and that doesn't change the fact our characters worship the collective Sovereign Host not an individual deity. It would require a stupidly large amount of work to present a diety for every weapon or near every weapon ... and in the end it shouldn't be done. Clerics can melee, they're not supposed to be great at it however.

Besides, of the weapons listed.. only the Warhammer or Battle Axe are even on par with the Longsword. The sickle, mace, morningstar are strictly inferior. The Quarterstaff could go either way.

I wasn't necessarily saying that these should be changed from lore, but they are much too limited and rather terrible. As far as I see it, there are 4 options:

Leave as is. This sucks.

Change the favored weapon for at least two of those categories (I really don't think our options should include multiples of the same weapons).

Seriously expand the list of available domains, so that we gain more options without breaking from lore.

Attach abilities/enhancements to the favored weapons that improve them enough that they feel on-par with more desired choices.

In the case of the last, that would be probably granting longswords either an expanded crit range (basically turning them into bigger damage die scimitars), or an increased multiplier (turning them into khopeshes without requiring a feat, which seems reasonable). For the bows, maybe grant some of the archery feats for free to alleviate the MAD issues a divine caster has when trying to effectively wield a bow.

as far as your #2 argument, there are 5 faiths, each granting a different weapon proficiency:
Lord of Blades granting Greatsword
Silver flame granting Longbow
Sovereign Host granting Longsword
Undying Court granting Scimitar
and Finally Vulkoor (from the drow which seems un-listed so far on this topic, maybe for good reason, I'm not sure) which should grant Shortsword

no multiples, unless you count 2 characters from different races with the same faith, but those should be the same.

As for #3 and #4, id agree that more options always make this kind of selection a bit more enjoyable for the skilled player, and id imagine that you would get enhancements to improve the weapons skills, but probably not in the +crit or improved damage dice.
personally i call getting a free weapon proficiency a gift, since previously they got nothing, and more importantly they didn't get a free weapon proficiency in the PnP version, unless the domain explicitly gave it, which was rare.

Could they make this more exciting? sure. Would everyone love it if they did? id imagine most would. Is it necessary? i don't think so, some might, but i don't. from what i hear, most divines are considered relatively OP even without this implementation, some probably say they need the help. its all an opinion based on how they are built, and to each their own.

as far as your #2 argument, there are 5 faiths, each granting a different weapon proficiency:
Lord of Blades granting Greatsword
Silver flame granting Longbow
Sovereign Host granting Longsword
Undying Court granting Scimitar
and Finally Vulkoor (from the drow which seems un-listed so far on this topic, maybe for good reason, I'm not sure) which should grant Shortsword

no multiples, unless you count 2 characters from different races with the same faith, but those should be the same.

As for #3 and #4, id agree that more options always make this kind of selection a bit more enjoyable for the skilled player, and id imagine that you would get enhancements to improve the weapons skills, but probably not in the +crit or improved damage dice.
personally i call getting a free weapon proficiency a gift, since previously they got nothing, and more importantly they didn't get a free weapon proficiency in the PnP version, unless the domain explicitly gave it, which was rare.

Could they make this more exciting? sure. Would everyone love it if they did? id imagine most would. Is it necessary? i don't think so, some might, but i don't. from what i hear, most divines are considered relatively OP even without this implementation, some probably say they need the help. its all an opinion based on how they are built, and to each their own.

There should be faith options that are tied to a race's favored weapon.
This isn't PnP where weapon selection means a lot less, a shield means more, and a selection of spells can make up for a divine caster's lack of feats and full-BAB to catch up to, and possibly even exceed, a fighter in combat.

The OPness of divines isn't going to get solved by limiting significant choices regarding their weapons. It will get solved by better balancing their spells, mana, mana regenerating capabilities (pots, Torc, etc...), and by improving monster AI to a degree that a single slow cleric running back and forth through a Blade Barrier can't wipe out a roomful of monsters.

Also, these selections are extending to paladins as well, who could really use a little breathing room on their feats.

improving monster AI to a degree that a single slow cleric running back and forth through a Blade Barrier can't wipe out a roomful of monsters.

This is crazy talk. Next thing, you will want mobs to not stand in firewalls, acid rain and ice storms. Maybe even purposefully modify the aggro rules to cause healers and casters to get targeted first and foremost.

What if casting healing spells on tanks/dps that mob is trying to beat down generated threat? When you encounter a melee mob(that you can't one or two shot) being healed by two mob clerics what do you do? Try to out-dps the healing? Or ignore the melee mob and kill the clerics first?

What if intimidate shifted from being an absolute aggro grab for 6 seconds to being only a modifier applied to damage? But you can't just shield block and get aggro by hitting itim. You have to actually be causing some damage. What would you do if there was a mob with a big sack of HP that didn't attack much or do much damage in the same room with other mobs that were doing a lot of DPS? Pound on the sack of HP until the DPS mobs killed you? (Think. Lailat and the Stormreaver are in the same room. Which one do you focus on dropping first?)

What if defensive items (guards, fire shield hot/cold) actually subtracted from aggro rather than increasing it? Don't you generally avoid mobs that have these kind of attributes in favor of ones that don't, if you have the choice? Or cause them to switch to ranged tactics that will not proc the guard?

All of the above would make the mobs more challenging. That would mean we would have to focus on the quests and put effort into completing the quests (while possibly enjoying them) instead of just blindly zerging through and focusing on how much xp/min we are getting or how many runs we need to get the loot drop we want.

This is crazy talk. Next thing, you will want mobs to not stand in firewalls, acid rain and ice storms. Maybe even purposefully modify the aggro rules to cause healers and casters to get targeted first and foremost.

What if casting healing spells on tanks/dps that mob is trying to beat down generated threat? When you encounter a melee mob(that you can't one or two shot) being healed by two mob clerics what do you do? Try to out-dps the healing? Or ignore the melee mob and kill the clerics first?

What if intimidate shifted from being an absolute aggro grab for 6 seconds to being only a modifier applied to damage? But you can't just shield block and get aggro by hitting itim. You have to actually be causing some damage. What would you do if there was a mob with a big sack of HP that didn't attack much or do much damage in the same room with other mobs that were doing a lot of DPS? Pound on the sack of HP until the DPS mobs killed you? (Think. Lailat and the Stormreaver are in the same room. Which one do you focus on dropping first?)

What if defensive items (guards, fire shield hot/cold) actually subtracted from aggro rather than increasing it? Don't you generally avoid mobs that have these kind of attributes in favor of ones that don't, if you have the choice? Or cause them to switch to ranged tactics that will not proc the guard?

All of the above would make the mobs more challenging. That would mean we would have to focus on the quests and put effort into completing the quests (while possibly enjoying them) instead of just blindly zerging through and focusing on how much xp/min we are getting or how many runs we need to get the loot drop we want.

I agree with all of that (including the sarcasm), except the point about Intimidate. I think the current state of the skill works well with a short-duration aggro-grab, followed by a threat boost, and with a cooldown that lasts longer than either of those effects. S&B DPS has gotten some big bumps in the last year or so, but it's still quite far behind true DPSers, and if they can't retain aggro, there's no point in bothering.

Intimidate is causing the monsters to view you as more of a threat than you actually are. That's reasonable, especially if you assume they are running around without looking at their HP all the time. The rest...yeah.

And I'll add: if monsters were to occasionally fall back to more easily defended positions, or do a better job of swapping between melee and ranged attacks.

Giving mobs a genuine artificial INTELLIGENCE vs their current artificial stupidity would be the single greatest boost to game quality I can imagine. Would love to see the look on a players face the first time a mob ran around the blade barrier to smack his divne self, or when the survivors of a fireball scatter instead of politely staying grouped up waiting for a second blast...

I think changes like this could go a long way towards restoring some balance between Meele & casters, as much of the caster's OPness (IMO) seems to come from mobs very artificial intelligence.

Originally Posted by Enoach

"All characters have multiple abilities when it comes to fighting that benefits the parties ability to complete a quest, how many are YOU using?"

Giving mobs a genuine artificial INTELLIGENCE vs their current artificial stupidity would be the single greatest boost to game quality I can imagine. Would love to see the look on a players face the first time a mob ran around the blade barrier to smack his divne self, or when the survivors of a fireball scatter instead of politely staying grouped up waiting for a second blast...

I think changes like this could go a long way towards restoring some balance between Meele & casters, as much of the caster's OPness (IMO) seems to come from mobs very artificial intelligence.

While such a change would be truly fantastic, it is also monumentally difficult to do. For every situation, you would have to create batches of code for every mob telling them what to do under those specific circumstances. This will end up becoming incredibly bulky and unwieldy from a code base perspective. For example, 1 mob vs. 1 blade barrier in a hallway. Mob sees BB, runs around to the right. now, mob sees not enough room to run around to the right, so mob runs around to the left instead. now, mob sees not enough room to run around to the left, so mob tries to ranged the caster. now, caster moves out of line of sight, so mob has to run around the barrier again, and mob tries to run around to the right. mob rechecks and sees it still cannot move around to the right, then rechecks and sees it still cannot move around to the left, then rechecks and sees it cannot ranged attack, so now it has to move through the blade barrier. That is a whole lot of code to write, and a whole lot of code to check every second in game, which leads to a whole lot (more) lag and bugs. Just for 1 mob to be able to run around a blade barrier. Copy all of that for fire wall, ice storm, acid rain, etc. Much, much more difficult that it sounds.

Neat

Originally Posted by DDOTalk71

This is crazy talk. (...snip...)

All of the above would make the mobs more challenging. That would mean we would have to focus on the quests and put effort into completing the quests (while possibly enjoying them) instead of just blindly zerging through and focusing on how much xp/min we are getting or how many runs we need to get the loot drop we want.

Never thought of some of these details (particularly guards reducing aggro). Very cool.

I'd love the strategic elements that would be introduced if even one of these ideas were implemented.

So, random question on the actual topic of the thread, but why are the allowable faiths so severely restricted in DDO? I can understand having some faiths that are restricted to certain races, but why is it that almost every race only has 1 available deity option?

So, random question on the actual topic of the thread, but why are the allowable faiths so severely restricted in DDO? I can understand having some faiths that are restricted to certain races, but why is it that almost every race only has 1 available deity option?

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